San Francisco hits pause on new data centers with 45-day moratorium

San Francisco has put new data centers on hold. The city’s Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a 45-day interim moratorium on October 6-7, 2026, halting new approvals and expansions while officials figure out what these facilities are doing to the neighborhoods around them. The measure is an interim zoning moratorium, and it took effect immediately. Supervisor Shamann Walton introduced it, with backing from Supervisors Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder, and Chyanne Chen. For 45 days, the city will not sign off on new data centers or expansions of existing ones. Facilities already running keep running, but nobody gets to build or grow. The pause has a homework assignment attached. The Planning Department must report its findings within 25 days of the moratorium taking effect. That report will shape what happens next. The study could lay the groundwork for a potential long-term ban, though nothing in the current measure makes that outcome automatic. The issue hits close to home for Walton. At least two data centers already operate in his Bayview district, and expansions have been proposed there. A zoning rulebook from the flip-phone era San Francisco’s Planning Code defines data cent...